The Way We're Working Isn't Working
By Tony Schwartz
Free Press, 332 pages, $36.00
The Stress Effect
By Henry Thompson
Jossey-Bass, 329 pages, $31.95
The way we're working isn't working.
That's the profound message from consultant Tony Schwartz, who says the commitment in today's business world to more, bigger, faster is overwhelming our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities. Our furious activity exacts a silent penalty, as we have less capacity for focused attention, less time to complete any given task, and less opportunity to think reflectively or for the long term.
"The way we are working isn't working in our own lives, for the people we lead and manage, and for the organizations in which we work. We're guided by a fatal assumption that the best way to get more done is to work longer and more continuously. But the more hours we work and the longer we go without real renewal, the more we begin to default, reflexively, into behaviours that reduce our own effectiveness - impatience, frustration, distraction, and disengagement - and take a pernicious toll on others," he writes in The Way We're Working Isn't Working.
We commit to this unproductive work style because we unconsciously believe we can operate continuously at high speed, like computers. But he insists human beings are actually hardwired to operate in waves during which, alternately, we spend and then renew our energy. The most obvious is our sleep cycle, although we routinely cheat on that, cutting back on sleep. Less obvious is that during our waking hours we need intermittent renewal.
He looks at a study of violinists that writer Malcolm Gladwell cited in his book Outliers. But he says Mr. Gladwell's conclusion - that people at the top, in this case concert violinists, work much, much harder than others - doesn't do justice to the complexity of the research by Florida State University professor Anders Ericsson.
All the violinists found practice the most difficult activity in their lives. The ones who became the best violinists not only practised more but they also practised in intense bursts, without interruptions, for about 90 minutes and then took a good break before returning for more practice. They also slept more - 8.6 hours a day, nearly an hour a day longer than the violinists who only went on to become music teachers, the least accomplished of the violinists studied.
"Many of us complain about long hours but the reality is that it's less demanding to work at moderate intensity for extended periods of time than it is to work at the highest level of intensity for even shorter periods. If more of us were able to focus in the intense but time-limited ways that the best violinists do, the evidence suggests that great performances would be much more common than it is," he advises.
So build in rituals of relaxation and reflection in your day, keeping the 90 minute intensity framework in mind. Don't let meetings run beyond 90 minutes. Sleep more so you can get more done, instead of fooling yourself into sleeping less on the grounds that you might get more done. Those are some of the most prominent ideas, as he guides you through the changes to ensure you renew your four types of energy: Physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. If you're dubious it applies to you, answer the question that his company asks clients it coaches: "Is the life you're leading worth the price you're paying to live it?"
An important part of that price, according to leadership consultant Henry Thompson, is bad decisions. When we operate under stress, we make dumb decisions. Yet, he notes in The Stress Effect, leadership studies focus on the attributes of great leaders without looking at how to improve decision-making under stress.
Stress strikes our cognitive intelligence - what we normally call IQ - and our emotional intelligence. "As stress increases, cognitive intelligence goes down, which causes emotional intelligence to go down, which causes stress to increase, which causes cognitive ability to go down," he observes. "The leader is in a downward spiral."
The book opens with the cockpit transcript describing an incident of successful decision-making under stress as Captain Chesley Sullenberger brought US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe landing on the Hudson River after some Canada geese were sucked into the engines. Mr. Thompson, who fought in Vietnam, describes how the Marines and Navy SEALS prepare their leaders for decision-making under stress.
The book is initially plodding, as it describes how the brain works and our emotional intelligence operates, but I grew to like it the deeper I delved into the text for the logical way it explained the actual reasons for our mistakes under stress and then provided various salves. In the end, he highlights seven prime suggestions - awareness of your psyche and emotions, rest, support from others, exercise, nutrition, positive attitude, and continual learning - that aren't much different from Mr. Schwartz's. If you need to choose between the books, let your own preoccupation decide: If you feel overwhelmed, go for The Way We're Working Isn't Working and if you are concerned your decisions under stress may be shaky try The Stress Effect.
IN ADDITION
In Leading Outside The Lines (Jossey-Bass, 232 pages, $33.95) consultants Jon Katzenbach and Zia Khan argue that to successfully motivate people you must move beyond the formal aspects of the organization - the hierarchy, and levers of power it offers - and deal also with more informal aspects of getting things done, influencing people through shared values, informal networks, communities that have formed internally, and pride in what your team can accomplish. The authors somewhat stolidly take you through the implications of that approach, until the end when they become edgier, if less convincing, by throwing around somewhat meaningless terms like "fast zebras" and "melting the tundra." The book includes an interesting section on former Bell Canada CEO Michael Sabia's efforts to reach outside the former structure to seed a movement for change through working with some front-line managers who excelled at motivating their teams.
Consultant Kevin Eikenberry takes 140 bite-sized thoughts on leadership - each of them less than the 140 characters required for posting on Twitter - slaps them into a 106-page book, and has a surprisingly meaty offering for you to ponder in #LEADERSHIPtweet (Superstar Press, $21.25).
Just in: Robert's Rules Of Innovation (John Wiley, 212 pages, $41.95) by consultant Robert Brands with business writer Martin Kleinman offers what he calls a 10-step program for corporate survival.
In Liespotting (St. Martin's Press, 236 pages, $29.99) social networking entrepreneur Pamela Meyer shows how to use facial recognition and interrogation techniques to detect deception and get the information you need in your interactions and transactions with others.
Top human resources experts tackle some of the pressing issues of the field in Leading HR (Palgrave, 281 pages, $48), brought together by a team of academics and consultants, Paul Sparrow, Martin Hird, Anthony Hesketh, and Cary Cooper.
Special to The Globe and Mail